Electronic control units for vehicles

Abstract

An electronic control unit for a vehicle, the electronic control unit comprising a processor comprising: a processor core; storage, the storage storing data comprising instructions for the processor core; a tamper-resistant hardware security module which is coupled to the storage for reading and writing; and an external interface; the electronic control unit further comprising further storage connected to the processor through the external interface and containing further data; in which the hardware security module is arranged to cause a determination whether the data in the storage has been tampered with and, on a determination that the data has been tampered with, to cause the further data to be loaded into the storage from the further storage over the external interface. Other apparatus and methods for improving the security of electronic control circuits are disclosed.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a national stage of International Application No. PCT / GB2016 / 052104, filed 12 Jul. 2016, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in entirety, and which claimed priority to Great Britain Patent Application No. 1512462.1, filed 16 Jul. 2015, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to electronic control units for vehicles, and to methods of operation of such electronic control units.[0003]Modern vehicles typically use one or more electronic control units (ECUs) to control functions of the vehicle. In an automobile, this would typically include brake and / or steering actuators, amongst various others. It is desirable, particularly where the ECUs can be connected to external data networks, to ensure that the data executed by the processor of such ECUs is not modified, whether by misfortune or maliciously.[0004]Wher...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This patent describes a system where a processor has limited storage capacity, but can still maintain the benefits of additional storage. The additional storage can be located on a separate integrated circuit, allowing for a reduction in storage on the processor. The patent also mentions that the processor can decrypt encrypted bootloaders, making them more secure against compromise.

Problems solved by technology

Neither of these options is entirely palatable in a vehicle which needs functioning ECUs to operate safely, even in a“limp-home” mode.

Although this protects the system against rogue software sending messages that appear trustworthy, it does not protect the local functions, which may have safety implications, from the operation of the rogue software.

It is not possible for the application software running on the processor of an ECU to securely interrogate the HSM and then operate on the result of this interrogation as the application software may already be suspect (so may have been programmed to just ignore the “fail” result from the HSM).

This harm could be (for example) physical, financial, privacy intrusion or reputational.

One key harm which must be considered when thinking about the potential reaction to a security breach is a “denial of service”; here, a car could be rendered undriveable by an external agent, which will indirectly result in harm, whether physical, if the vehicle is located somewhere hazardous that the driver must get away from quickly, or reputational, on the part of the vehicle manufacturer who will suffer harm from the reports of the vehicle not starting.

Any of these, if incorrect (either through error or through the activity of an malicious actor), would be a problem.

Example limp-home functionality:DAS systems (e.g. radar) could just not operate, although as vehicles move to increased autonomy, this will not be acceptable.Braking ECUs could (e.g.) fall back to only providing no active functions such as slip-control.

However, the braking ECU may be responsible for providing vehicle-speed messages to the rest of the vehicle (e.g. the dashboard) and so the interface from the sensors to the communications must remain intact and untampered.Engine and Steering ECUs both require the peripherals to do very precisely-controlled dynamic activities, even in a limp-home mode, so merely blocking access to peripherals is not possible.

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